Evaluation

One of our performances was to make a devising piece with everyone in our group. Devising is making our own piece with anything we want to do about. We firstly as a group got together and started to decide what type of performance we could do. Firstly we wanted to decide a genre to do. We all decided to do a big genre horror. This genre is one of the biggest and effective genres to do.

After deciding the genre of horror we all set each other to go away and find a specific area of horror. My idea was based on psychological horror, religion, and life after death. I believed that these two areas would make a really good link, this is because religion is a very big aspect in a lot of people’s lives and religion has different opinions and beliefs to life after death. I thought that we could look at the two major religions (Muslims and Christians) and their beliefs about death and spirits. Some people had similar ideas to mine, with religion and sprits. Someone else’s idea was KKK, they said that this idea has not been looked into a lot and that we could make a good performance about the KKK. A lot of us didn’t like this idea because we thought that we won’t have a lot of ideas that we could develop into a 20 minutes performance. We all decided that we would use spirts and parts of religion. The reason why we decided to use this idea was because we all thought that we all have different ideas to spirts and we could develop everyone ideas in different scenes. After deciding our main idea for the performance we all said that we should go away and bring some ideas to how we could develop the horror genre. When we got back we looked into people’s ideas of the performance. My ideas was to have a family and the child see’s spirits and experience’s paranormal activities. Some other ideas were very different, such as looking into the way the earth a humans were formed, so there’s giants, and aliens, then humans are produces. This idea was looking into a very different idea of horror. We all decided to use the idea of family and spirits.

We had some activities such as making small scenes with just bringing ideas together. One of the small scenes we started with was having a mum character, a father, child, spirt and two other characters. It was a dream type of scene. When the mum character has a dream of her son getting taken away by the dark spirit. She got woken up by the dad character, she rushes into the room to find her son in his bed sleeping. Even though this small activity of devising was not a big part at the beginning, we further in the devising we decided to develop and shape this into a full scene which is a very useful and good scene. After we started to make small scenes such as the cooking scene, car scene, and cinema scene. We all decided that these all had the same type of meaning, of the mum character seeing the spirt and that we need to see more of other characters. We started to make new scenes such as the party scene, son see’s spirit, circus scene, café scene, sister and sister shopping, argument and the neighbour scene. This allowed us to add different characters and make the performance not just based on two character (mum and spirit).

After adding different scenes, we decided to make order of the scenes we had already, this make it easier for us to know what we had and what scenes we would have next. We realised in our devising piece so far that we needed a climax. So we decided to make the mum character go mental, so we added the montage and mental asylum scene which would show that she had gone mental with all the paranormal activities which has been haunting her for killing her stepbrother when they were younger. When we added these two scenes we thought that there needs to be a reason to how she ended there. We then decided to add another scene at the end when the mum character gets possessed by the John spirit to killing her own daughter, this then leads to the mental asylum, which would then make sense when she ends up in the mental asylum.

Our progress throughout the devising was all over the place, meaning that a lot of us were always bringing ideas up and giving opinions but a lot of these ideas and opinions were not looked upon and used in an active way. We would not have a lot of time to perform what we had to the teachers and get feedback because we would always spend a lot of time on talking over the scenes. I believe that we as a group had a very slow progress. For myself I was late for some of the lessons or not in some of the lessons which slowed down my characters progress. However, I still believe that we gave a really good performance and put together a really good play.

Before the performance on Friday we had a tech run where we had to make sure the technicians knew where the sound cues where and also what type of lighting we would use to set the mood of the different scenes.

When we performed on Friday 11^th December 2015 we got given time to practice for 40 minutes to make sure we are sure with the transitions and the cues of the sound and light. The time we was given to practice and get ready was productive it gave us time to go through scenes we thought we needed to look at, which were mainly the scenes where there were the use of chairs, so we made it clear who would move certain chairs and where we would move them. We got time to go get costumes depending on the characters. For my character I used a night robe for the baby sitting scene and the last scene to show that we are in a house setting.  

Overall, I believe that we had a lack of energy whilst we was performing, I think that this was because the sound cue was at certain points taking longer than it should. However, I still think that we as a group kept our characters on time and carried on with the performance. The props were used at the right time and also we managed to do the performance with another psychologist because the psychologist character Taio was not there on the performance day so we had to use someone else as the psychologist. One of the strongest scenes in my opinion was the last scene this is because it was the highest climax of the performance which I believe made the performance serious. The scene I think that didn’t work out as it was meant to was the car scene this was because the sounding effect took long to come on for the spirits cue to come on the stage and also when the car screeched when the mum character drove backwards with the car took long so that scene took longer than it was meant to take which slowed us down.

I believe that my character was very suitable for myself because I like to bring across my child side at times. However, I believe that I could have put in more energy to my character. 

11/12/2015

We had our performance today. We all got time to rehearse with sound and lighting which helped us. We would be informed to what we would be doing by our teachers next.

08/12/2015

Today we had a tech run. We had to show tell the technicians where the sound would come and what type of lighting we would use in each scene. By the end of today we finished the lighting and sound cues. However, due to all of us were talking over each other we ran over the time we was meant to have. On Friday we would be doing our performance in front of a small group and we would get asset by getting filmed by a camera.

01/12/2015

Today we went through the last scene. We made the last scene much more dramatic by making the actions slower when the mother character stabs the daughter, this makes the scene the actual climax and makes it a hiccup of the play, showing that the spirit character is very strong at this point. Next lesson we need to go through the lighting and sound cues.

27/11/2015

Today's lesson we went through our scenes in order and got some feedback from our teacher. We was told that we need use more characterisation, to make our character have more meaning and make them realistic. We was also told that we need to make the last scene when the daughter character gets killed by the mum character much more effective because it is the highest climax in the play. For next lesson we need to start to carry on going through the whole play and give ideas to make them better.

24/11/2015

We as a group wrote down our strengths and the developments we needed to do this lesson. One of our strengths was the structure of our story so it was clearly set out. One of the development was to do our transitions. So this lesson we started to develop some of our developments we wrote down. We looked at the transitions, we got Taio's character as the psychologist to make our transitions look more flow to the next scene. We also started to think about having blackouts and lightings. We had to think about the chairs and how we would move the chairs according to the scenes, so we had 1 or 2 people who was in the scene at the end would change the chairs. Our aim for next lesson is to carry on developing the scenes in order.

19/11/2015

We discussed the strengths and the parts that need to be developed in our piece. Our main aims were to develop the scenes in order and also to do the transitions clearly. The development we done was in the dream scene, when the spirit character pulls the daughter character which is my character I scream to show the fear as a young girl. This would also show tention in the scene. In the babysitting scene my character as the daughter and the aunty character as Jessica needs to use more characterisation. Our aim is to develop three other scenes,

18/11/2015

We put the scenes in order. Some of the idea we had was that Taio's character as the psychologist would be a narrator, which would be giving reflections in some scenes then setting the next scene up. One of our feedback was to make the party scene more fun and exiting as it was boring before. We have developed the daughter see's spirit scene where the sister of the mother character is babysitting her niece and the daughter character see's the spirit. We would need to develop this scene.

16/11/2015

Our aim for this lesson was to structure and add new scenes. We firstly done the scenes in order to make the story clear and know what scene to develop. We added the psychologist which is Tayo's character, she would be leading the scenes, at the end of scenes she would say something then lead it to the next scene which would make the transitions clear. We have all gave ideas to what should be done in the scenes. For our next lesson we would need to clear have a structure of the scenes and know how to use the psychologist as a transitions in the scenes. We need to all give idea because I believe that a lot of us are not participating well enough in the play.

13/11/2015

As we set our aim to structure and go through the play we, we went through all the scenes in detail. We thought that we could have the spirit character in the audience in the beginning for the montage scene which would scare the audience. There was an idea that we would do a scene of a party where we introduce the characters. The feedback we got is that we need to project our vocals,  make our transitions clear, mime properly and also to expand our characters in each scene. This means that our aim for next lesson is to work on the feedback we got for our teacher.

12/11/2015

For today we started to do the cafe scene, I believe that this scene is really good however we need to develop it more by making the scene set up clearer, having the chairs facing the audience. We also produced the argument scene between the mum and dad character, this is prior the cafe scene, as this would lead the dad character to get angry and go to the cafe. After the cafe scene we have also decided to do a scene where the African lady bumps into the mum to let her know what has happened between the gypsy and dad. We set out the scenes we have in the order it will be going in. Today's lesson way very productive because we got a lot of scenes done and we all gave ideas. For our next lesson we need to go over the scenes we have already in order.

11/11/2015

We as a group came up with an idea, myself and three other group members said that we do a scene where the gypsy character gets hypnotised by the spirit character to seduce the father character, so we said we do a cafe scene where this all happens, which then we could use another character of the African women. We said this idea would be good because the spirit is starting to take everything away from the mother, the stuff that she loves the most so she goes mental slowly. Jessica and Bianca gave the idea of the mum finds out that she killed the character John (spirit) is the stepbrother of the character mum and the sister. So we could do a scene showing this. We have had some possible scenes with the sister and mum character, showing them having a fun day out and that everything is normal. We write up the scenes we have so far so it would be clear to what is next. I believe that we was all taking part with giving ideas, but we did not get up and try these ideas out so our aim next lesson would be to try these ideas out.  

06/11/2015

For this lesson we carried on developing and shaping the cinema scene. We looking into the scene to understand the scene, we looked at the purpose of the scene. After we finally developed and shaped the cinema scene we got together and decided where the climax was meant to be in the story. The main hiccup is meant to be around the middle, towards the end of the story this is because this is when the spirits character is at it's strongest point so we need to show this. We have also came up with the idea to do a mental asylum type of scene, where there are 3 mental people on stage, Bianca's and Lenrick/s character as the mum and spirit come on stage go mad to show that the mum character is gone mad, this would be the beginning of the story and the rest of the scene would be a flashback of her life and how it went bad. We have all worked a lot this lesson because we finished developing the cinema scene and we have also gave idea to what is next which is doing the asylum scene.

05/11/2015

For this lesson we started to get on the third stage which is developing and shaping. We decided to develop the cinema scene this lesson so we started to develop the scene by adding sound make it look realistic. We started to explore some idea such as using the sound effects, which I believe made the scene much more real. I believe that this developing and shaping scenes could be used in our other scenes, because it wa an effective way to make the scene better. However, we block each other's ideas when we put ideas across to each other. For next lesson we would carry on developing this scene.

04/11/2015

We had a run through of what we did the previous day of the circus scene. As a group we said that the spirit character needs to be more co-ordinated, and the gypsy needs to be more spooky, have bigger gestures and use more voice skills to make her characters more spooky. We have decided to add another scene which would be the revenge scene where the spirit takes the child away from the mum as a revenge. The spirit character is going to grow power throughout the scenes, he would be weak in the first scene, then get stronger as the scenes go along to the point where he has the power to kill the child. Today we have decided to creating a storyline to make the play make sense so it would be easier for us to understand whats next in the play. Next lesson we are going to pick a specific scene to develop which we decided to do the cinema scene as this was one of the weak scenes we had. 

03/11/2015

We got straight into the circus scene and started to develop it, We decided to make the character John (spirit) is going to be the step broter of the character of the mum. She has bullied him when they were younger and she was also the reason for his death. So we decided to add a part where the gypsy changes seats with the spirit and he tells the character mu why he is haunting her after many years. For this lesson we developed this scene, and also we have a good knowledge to the order of the scenes. The scenes are starting to make sense. Some of us in the group haven't all got characters so we need to make more scenes to add the new characters. 

02/11/2015

These are some of the scenes we have so far. We decided to use the character gypsy. So we started a scene with the mother, child, father and the gypsy. It is in a circus, after the family goes to the circus they leave, as they are leaving the mother see's a gypsy. For this lesson I think that we were productive because we started with the circus scene and we got this scene done with. However, I believe that as a group we talk over each other too much which really effects our ideas and the way we use crucial ideas. We need to develop the circus scene for our next lesson. 

23/10/2015

We got set to write up our own ideas for the play on our research. This photo is the idea which was from one of our classmate. Her idea was about how the world began. And how giants lives and aliens invaded and mixed with our genes. My idea was about how a child's father died and after his mother got married to another man year later, the little kid said to his mother that his dad never hit him. I suggested that we could use the dad's character a bit more as we hardly see him. A way we could see him is maybe get parts when his with his child spending time with him and the family. I personally believe that we as a class got to listen to everyone's ideas and we effectively started to put these ideas into our play by deciding what we could and not use. For our next lesson we will try some of the ideas we came up with.  

22/10/2015

For this lesson we first of all set out three targets to what our aims would be for today's lesson. Our first was to update everyone who missed lessons previously and let them them know where we got up to according to acting. Our second aim was to create a storyline, this was so we could be clear on what the story would be about which would make it much easier for us to progress our acting and know exactly what is coming up next. And finally our last aim was to develop ideas, we all agreed to give ideas and try them out. We then got straight into acting and we went through what we had already from last lesson. We also wanted to develop some scenes. The scene when the neighbour comes to see if the character of the mother is fine because she runs into her in panic. Our teacher suggested that the characters in this scene goes through what they have and us as the audience stops them at any point and suggests an idea and the characters try it out to see if it's better or not. I believe that this exercise was a very useful idea because in my idea we gave really good ideas and we made this scene look better than it was before. I believe that we achieved more than our aims for this lesson. For next lesson I think that our aims should be to polish our other scenes and keep adding ideas to make them look better.

14/10/12015

For today's lesson we all went around and gave ideas to what our storyline should be and what we are basing our performance on. The main idea we had was that a the mother character sees a bad dream about her son dying and this really plays up on her mind so she goes to see a fortune teller. The fortune tellers tells her that she needs to be very careful with her son in the future something bad could happen to him. I believe for this lesson we all contributed and gave ideas. However, I believe that we could have gotten a lot more ideas or even started to get acting and try some of the ideas we came up with. Next lesson I believe that we should start to put the acting together a little bit, and also contribute in giving ideas without blocking other peoples ideas, trying them out to see if they work. 

07/10/2015

For this lesson we gave the ideas to what we wanted to base out performance on. I was not present in this lesson but I have been informed that we are going to base it on supernatural. For our next lesson we need to bring in some case studies and some research on the theme supernatural. 

31/10/2015

For this lesson we came up with some ideas on which types of horror themes we could use. In the picture I have attached we have written the ideas we wanted to do, for example I preferred culture and psychology as I believe that we could bring the horror side to the different types of religions and cultures within their beliefs in the idea of after life, demons, ghosts etc.